To start off with, I began writing urban fantasy back when I was about thirteen.

After a conversation with my dad, he suggested that I write a vampire book with a basic plot. I won't go into the plot he suggested, but I immediately attempted to write it. It made sense to me. I was a big vampire fan, which he knew before he gave that advice. Anyways, it took my something like 6-8 weeks to complete it. At the time, I thought it was great.

The last time I saw it, I deleted it from my computer, knowing full well that I'd lose the only copy of it. It was that bad.

Anyways, I started on traditional fantasy when I was a sophomore, though I did a bit of traditional fantasy roleplaying the year before... and the year before that.

I worked on a number of traditional fantasy stories and urban fantasy stories throughout high school. Most of the former were heavily inspired by a friend's work. Those stories were too heavily rooted in my friend's to be decent, to be honest. Sure, I highly doubt his work will ever be finished, let alone published- he's spent well over four years working on it and still isn't even halfway done with the first story- but I could never have been proud of it. I wouldn't go so far as to say that they were plagiarism, but they were very derivative, all the same.

My writing seemed to truly pick up during my senior year. I took the two freshman-level English classes at the local college. It was here that I actually became aware of the most important rule of dialogue. I am, of course, referring to the fact that you must change lines every time the speaker changes.

I felt ashamed that I had never noticed this in the many books I read, but I wasn't all that observant.

I graduated from high school in May of 2009, and I spent the time between then and now writing original fiction and fanfiction, along with reading a great deal. It was during this time that I truly learned about writing.

As I've stated, I've written a great deal over the years. I believe that I've gone a little over the 10,000 hours it takes to become good at something.

That 10,000 hour thing I mentioned is related to the Rule of 10,000. It states that you must do something for 10,000 hours to become good at something. That's what I've heard, anyways.

Getting back to the topic at hand... I began writing "The Sword of Kirakath" in November of 2010.

The concept behind The Sword of Kirakath originated from one of the stories that I worked on back in 2009.

I was going through the files on my computer, checking them out and deleting them. One of them was about Caleb of Kirakath. In that story, it took place a few years after the Massacre of Kirakath, in which a large number of bandits massacred his village while he was hunting.

Caleb of Kirakath, along with his backstory, was the only thing that I took from that old story before I deleted it.

Making a reappearance in my "The Sword of Kirakath" story that I worked on in November 2010, Caleb of Kirakath quickly became my favorite character. Among the ones that I created, at least.

At the end of December, I decided that The Sword of Kirakath needed to be rewritten. The female lead in it became incredibly overpowered, just like every other mage. I had constructed a bad system of magic, apparently.

I was also being too strongly influenced by the trailers and speculations of Dragon Age 2.

So I took a break from original fiction, not returning to it until May 1st of this year. You should be able to tell what my first original fiction since that break is.

And thus, the rewrite of The Sword of Kirakath immediately turned into Through the Flames. I can already tell that it will be my best work to date.

To finish this off, I'd like to say that none of my world building was done this year. All of it comes from my actions in December 2010 when I was preparing to do a rewrite. I completed that world building before the first of the year, and the only thing I've done with it since then is a bit of revision.